Free Roth IRA Calculator

A Roth IRA inverts the usual tax deal: you contribute after-tax money today, and in exchange the IRS never taxes the account again — not the dividends, not the growth, not qualified withdrawals decades later. There are no required minimum distributions during your lifetime either, which makes a Roth both a retirement income tool and an estate-planning tool. This calculator projects what steady contributions become by your chosen withdrawal age, using the 2026 limits as guardrails.

The 2026 contribution limit is $7,500 across all your IRAs combined (traditional plus Roth share one limit), with a $1,150 catch-up at age 50+ — so $8,650 total for older savers. The engine spreads your annual contribution across 12 monthly installments and compounds monthly at the annual/12 convention, the same math as our compound interest calculator. At the defaults ($7,500 a year from 30 to 60 at 7%), $225,000 of contributions grows to $762,482 — and every dollar of the $537,482 of growth is tax-free forever.

Eligibility is where people trip: high earners face the MAGI phase-out. For 2026, the ability to contribute directly starts shrinking at $150,000 of modified AGI for single filers ($165,000 ceiling), $236,000-$246,000 for married filing jointly, and married-filing-separately filers hit the wall almost immediately ($10,000-$12,000 zone). Inside the band your limit is prorated — at $155,000 single, two-thirds of the band remains, so $5,000 of the $7,500 is allowed. The calculator applies that haircut automatically and shows you the exact allowed amount.

Two clocks govern tax-free withdrawals. Qualified distributions need the account open at least 5 years (the clock starts January 1 of the year of your first contribution) AND you being age 59½ or older. Your own contributions can come out any time, tax- and penalty-free, because you already paid tax on them; withdrawals are deemed to come from contributions first. Earnings pulled out early generally owe ordinary income tax plus a 10% penalty, with a few exceptions like $10,000 of first-home-buyer earnings after the 5-year mark.

The comparison strip at the bottom answers the "why bother" question with dollars: the same savings plan in a taxable brokerage account, paying a one-time 15% capital-gains bill on the growth at withdrawal, ends at $681,860 versus the Roth's $762,482 — an $80,622 edge from tax treatment alone, and that is the conservative version (real brokerage accounts leak money every year to taxed dividends and fund distributions). Pair this page with our retirement calculator to check total readiness, or the 401(k) calculator if a match is on the table.